Facebook Marketplace is a weird and wild land. It’s not just the place to go when you want to buy a used lawn mower or a coffee machine, it’s also a space filled with hundreds of treasures and oddities.

You can find everything from haunted dolls to coffins to the world’s ugliest bike listed on the site. And now on Facebook Marketplace you can buy… a Tesla coil? It that even legal? What a world.

First designed by inventor Nikola Tesla, a Tesla coil is an electrical “resonant transformer circuit” that is basically a terrifying machine that whips up giant crackling electrical zaps like lightning bolts and sprays them unpredictably out of a metal coil.

The listing describes the $200 handmade machine as capable of discharging 250,000 volts and cautions that it is not a toy. The man who listed it advises the new owner to build a Faraday cage for the thing and make sure that it is properly grounded. He also says it shouldn’t be used near people with “pace-makers or medical implants.” Yikes.



Why would the average person need a Tesla coil? If you’re not teaching science or 3D printing your own David Bowie like in The Prestige, there is really no practical use for owning your own lightning bolt machine.

But hey, don’t let that stop you. You never used that treadmill you bought off of Facebook Marketplace either, did you? Didn’t think so.

Check out the listing and read the full item description below.

“Custom made high-voltage tesla coil.
This is NOT A TOY!!!
This coil produces 12-13" plasma discharges at 250,000 volts off the discharge teminal. Would be good for a science or electronics classroom or even a university.
WARNING! If you purchase this item you are responisbile for it's effects and are hereby warned not to use it near sensitive electronics or near people with pace-makers or medical implants. I would advise building a faraday cage around it before using it and grounding the tank to it's own ground rod.
That being said, the price is firm.
It comes with a small roll of 29GA magnet wire for winding new coils and an additional discharge sphere.
There is a replaceable 2.5Mh choke within the unit that I can give you the name of the electronics shop where you can buy replacements if needed. They're cheap.
This unit currently has a freshly-wound secondary on it and the larger of the two discharge spheres mounted on it. (Smaller one is shown in picture)
Some cool tricks can be done with this coil. Florescent light bulbs will illuminate in your hands at a distance and clear light bulbs will look just like
the plasma balls you see at Spencer's gifts and elsewhere.
A warning again though...the primary coil puts out 6000 volts that can be dangerous or even fatal under certain circumstances.
Again...THIS IS NOT A TOY!!
Took me months to build this in a machine shop. PRICE IS FIRM
Tank is stainless steel.
Message me for questions.”

Email the author at jaime.lees@riverfronttimes.com

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